Switch from PM to Engineer

Hey Grapeviners, I need some serious help. Bit about myself - just graduated this month and working as an APM at a seed stage startup. I have 1.5 years of product experience and 3 years of overall experience. Lately, not sure why but I am loving what engineers do. Closely working with them, and I guess it's nostalgic for myself. Because I did coding for 6 months and moved on for some reason. So, I understand how tech actually works. Have got good feedback regarding this. At the same time, I am not really finding the true value of what I am doing everyday. Feels a void inside. Also, I am not able to discuss all these things in person with someone, because I fear that they will judge me after doing internships for 3 years, I still haven't figured out my career. Such a loser I am. I have been thinking about starting coding again and maybe switching to a coding job in the next 6 months maybe. But again it would be tough for me as I only got weekends for me to learn all this stuff. What do you all experienced folks suggest? What should I do? Please comment if you can help🙏

Blair Gabriel

Flipkart

a year ago

Quick question It has been less than a month since you graduated and you have 1.5 yrs of Product Experience and 3 years of overall experience. Can you please elaborate?

Kalan Carmden

Contlo

a year ago

My bad, I forgot to mention as AN INTERN*.

Jordon Lee

Flipkart

a year ago

Got then. You are yet to explore what Product Management actually is. As an intern and APM one generally does grunt work only, which is not very satisfying.

Isaiah Nadeen

Student

a year ago

So the kinda tech you are talking soon gonna get vanished but if you are still planing to be in tech you gotta be a pro at some domain thats my advise to you

Blair Hyrum

Stealth

a year ago

Which tech will get vanished and how?

Kalan Lee

Paytm

a year ago

Tech itself doesn't vanish completely. It just changes very fast. The tech that OP is looking to work on might vanish soon and be replaced by something else.

Aaron Nadeen

Stealth

a year ago

I feel you are just at your starting stage of your career. Doing 3 years internship might have taught you a lot, but I’m not sure how much this will be counted as your experience. So don’t think too much about being stuck on one area. There’s still enough time for you to switch to a tech role. Here’s my suggestion: 1. Continue your present job role as it is. 2. Fix the tech stack you want to work on as Engineer. Identify some problem statements and decide on a product that will solve them. 3. During weekends, start building some applications around this product on this tech stack. You can write your own requirements for this using your PM experience. 4. Make this work a formal and organized one. Set some realistic timeline. Spending 4 hours a day on weekends is more than enough to gain a good hold of the work. This is your own project & you’re the only one. So no meetings, no unnecessary waste of time in communication with the team and all. There are two advantages: 1. You will become hands on in tech. 2. You can polish your PM skills better as you build your own product. Eventually when you get confident on switching to a tech role, you can look for opportunities and grab them.

Jordon Hyrum

Contlo

a year ago

Thank You for explaining this. But I still have the same question. Should I learn tech and still work in products or so I learn tech and eventually move to tech.

Kalan Dean

Stealth

a year ago

I’m assuming you have no immediate tech opportunities to work on. My suggestion is to continue working on product, while looking for work on tech. Eventually you’ll hop on to tech job with due diligence.

Matilda Hyrum

Stealth

a year ago

I feel first you need to figure out, if you are good at coding. Go build something and ask ppl to give you feedback on it. If you conclude that you do indeed love coding and are good at it you should look for career change. Also it would be good to understand which parts in your current job you don’t like. What can be done to change that?